Crime Doesn’t Pay — Especially When It’s Mailed In

Being short on cash is tough — but turning to crime for income is never the answer. A mail processing clerk in South Carolina recently learned this lesson the hard way.

It started when a wave of complaints started hitting the USPS OIG Hotline. Businesses and individuals reported checks they had mailed from local post offices were being stolen and fraudulently cashed. Our special agents quickly traced the thefts to a mail processing plant and identified a main suspect: a mail clerk at the Columbia Processing and Distribution Center.

While the idea of easy cash by way of mail theft might be tempting to some postal employees, know the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General will be watching. We will aggressively investigate any USPS personnel who violates the public’s trust for personal gain.

– Tammy Hull
Inspector General, 
U.S. Postal Service

Working alongside the Postal Inspection Service, our special agents observed the clerk as he sifted through mail, targeting envelopes he believed contained personal or business checks. He would pocket the selected envelopes, take them to his car or home, photograph the checks, and then list them for sale on a popular social media app.

When questioned, the clerk admitted he was experiencing financial hardship and had found the idea of selling stolen checks online. For about a year, he had been stealing mail a couple days a week, about five to 10 envelopes at a time, but on the night he was arrested, investigators found 20 envelopes in his personal backpack. He sold the checks to anonymous buyers through an online marketplace and received payment via a cash app. The estimated losses from his scheme totaled about $3.5 million.

The Postal Service terminated his employment and he was charged with and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail or wire fraud. This September, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison with an added five years’ supervised release. The court also ordered him to pay back nearly $150,000 he had stolen.

If you suspect or know of mail theft by Postal Service employees or contractors, please report it to our Hotline.

For further reading:

Department of Justice (via uspsoig.gov), Former Mail Handler Sentenced to Federal Prison for Stealing Mail, Selling Bank Information